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QP45  .L523  A  dangerous  ideal/ 


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Published  by  The  American  Humanitarian  League. 


jot  It    Thousand. 


A  DANGEROUS  IDEAL 


ALBERT   LEFFINGWELL,  M.  D. 

Formerly  Instructor  in  Physiology  ;md   Hygiene  in  the  Polytechnic 
Institute,   Brooklyn,  New  York. 


QP*S" 


A  DANGEROUS  IDEAL. 


It  seems  almost  incredible  that  at  the  middle  of  this 
Nineteenth  Century  there  was  no  law  in  America  which 
made  the  cruel  treatment  of  animals,  in  itself,  a  punish- 
able offence.  Those  of  us  old  enough  to  remember 
village  life,  say  forty  years  ago,  will  recall  many  an  act  of 
inhumanity  which  then  passed  for  "  sport,"  but  which 
to-day  is  a  crime.  I  remember  certain  companions  of 
my  own  boyhood  for  example,  all  of  them  regular 
attendants  at  the  same  village  Sunday  School,  telling  me 
of  "  experiments  "  they  had  made  in  torturing  kittens 
and  rabbits,  simply  to  watch  their  convulsions  in  the 
agony  of  death.  If  a  man  saw  fit  to  pour  alcohol  over 
his  dog  and  set  him  afire,  there  was,  indeed,  protest 
against  his  brutality,  but  otherwise  he  was  safe.  The 
law  of  the  land  set  no  limits  to  his  treatment  of  his  own 
property.  If  he  chose  to  burn  it  alive  when  its  services 
were  no  longer  of  value, — who  had  the  right  to  object  ? 

Have  we  changed  all  this  ?  Certainly,  to  some  extent. 
Cruelty,  the  needless  infliction  of  pain,  the  torture  for 
amusement,  is  at  last  recognized,  not  only  as  an 
offense  against  good  manners,  but  as  an  injury  to  the 
commonwealth.  Humane  Societies  and  Bands  of  Mercy 
now  inculcate  lessons  of  kindness  at  the  earliest  age. 
Children  are  to-day  taught  that  cruelty  is  wicked  ;  that 
there  is  something  of  sacredness  in  every  life,  and  that 
mercy  is  clue  even  to  the  worm  that  crawls  at  our  feet. 

But  is  there  to  be  seen  any  tendency  backward  at  the 
present  time  ?  The  infliction  of  slow  torture  upon  help- 
less animals, — is  this  again  coming  into  general  practice 
and  to  be  defended  by  argument  ?  Is  it  even  about  to 
be  taught  to  young  men  and  young  women  as  a  necessity 


|  of  education?  This  seems  to  me  one  ol  the  serious 
5  questions  ol  the  hour.  Within  the  past  thirty  years 
a  new  ideal  has  become  prominent;  the  Longing  to 
penetrate  to  the  inmost  heart  oi  things,  to  solve  every 
enigma  ol  Nature-,  and  to  unravel  each  mystery  ol  human 
existence.  Whence  comes  the  origin  of  life ?  Whither 
are  we  going?  What  is  the  cause  of  all  these  curious 
phenomena  which  we  sum  up  in  the  word  Vitality  ? 
These  are  questions  modern  science  proposes,  ami 
desires  either  to  answer  or  prove  unanswerable.  Man 
once  sought  to  know  his  duty  to  his  God  and  his  fellow- 
men  ;  the  advanced  scientific  spirit  of  to-day  sometimes 
asks  us  if.  after  all,  we  are  quite  certain  we  have  any 
duties,  or  if  we  are  sure  that  Cod  exists  ? 

What  is  the  ideal  of  this  phase  of  thought?  It  seems 
to  me,  this  :  t/nit  in  future,  the  chief  aim  of  human  endeavor 
should  be  /<>  wrest  from  Nature  her  secrets. 

But  supposing  certain  facts  are  so  intimately  wrapped 
up  with  life  ami  sensation  that  we  can  get  at  them  only 
by  the  infliction  of  acute  agony,  of  prolonged  pain?  What 
if  one  who  seeks  to  penetrate  to  the  innermost  sanctuary  of 
life  must  unlearn  every  lesson  of  pity,  must  teach  himself 
to  take  pleasure  in  the  agony  he  inflicts,  must  become 
almost  a  human  fiend  ?  No  matter.  What  is  the  sentiment 
of  compassion  that  for  a  moment  it  should  stand  in  the 
way  of  scientific  investigation  ?  A  true  physiologist,  says 
Dr,  Claude  Bernard,  "does  not  hear  the  animal's  cries  of 
pain,  lie  is  blind  to  the  blood  that  flows.  He  sees  nothing 
but  his  idea,  and  organisms  which  conceal  from  him  the 
secret  he  is  resolved  to  discover."  The  question  of  benefit 
to  ouc'>  fellow-creatures  need  not  for  a  moment  enter  his 
thoughts.  ••  1  do  not  believe,"  says  Dr.  Charles  Richet, 
Professor  of  Physiology  in  Paris,  ••that  a  single  experi- 
menter says  to  himself,  when  he  gives  curare'   to  a  rabbit 

►Curare  is  a  drug  used  t'>  keep  the  animal  motionless  ;  sensation  is  supposed 
to  be  unimpaired. 


or  cuts  the  spinal  cord  of  a  dog.  '  Here  is  an  experiment 
which  will  relieve  or  cure  disease.'  No  ;  he  does  not  think 
of  that.  He  says  to  himself,  "I  shall  clear  up  an  obscure 
point;  I  will  seek  out  a  new  fact.  And  this  scientific 
curiosity  which  alone  animates  him  is  explained  by  the 
idea  he  has  of  science.  This  is  why  we  pass  our  days 
surrounded  by  groaning  creatures,  in  the  midst  of  blood 
and  suffering,  and  bending  over  palpitating  entrails."* 

How  far  has  this  spirit  of  inquiry,  no  matter  at  what 
cost,  penetrated  American  institutions  of  learning  ?  Does 
it  govern  the  teaching  of  our  schools  of  medicine  ?  In 
schools,  academies  and  colleges,  shall  young  men  and 
young  women,  boys  and  girls,  be  taught  that  the  new 
scientific  Ideal  of  investigation  for  its  own  sake,  demands  a 
personal  confirmation  of  every  physiological  statement  ?  Are 
text-books  to  give  way  before  the  young  student  with  his 
cords  and  knife  ?  That  is  a  present  tendency,  it  must  be 
confessed. 

In  the  Popular  Science  Monthly,  Dr.  Wesley  Mills, 
Professor  of  Physiology  in  McGill  University,  has  argued 
strongly  in  favor  of  teaching  science  by  means  of  experi- 
ment. "  Introduce  scientific  methods  and  introduce 
science  itself  according  to  the  laws  that  underlie  our  organ- 
ization, and  you  will  revolutionize  our  schools,"  he  tells 
the  teachers  to  whom  he  was  speaking.  "  Physiology  is 
perhaps  the  most  difficult  of  all  sciences  to  teach  well  in 
schools.  Book  physiology  is  rubbish,  utter  rubbish,"  he 
exclaims  with  warmth.  "  There  is  no  science  that  does  not 
permit  of  simple  experiments  that  may  be  introduced  into 
any  school.  The  pupils  will  delight  in  these,  and  they  will 
prove  a  source  of  strength,  pleasure  and  inspiration.  I  am 
not  to  be  understood  as  claiming  that  every  fact  that  a 
child  shall  take  cognizance  of  shall  be  gained  through 
observation  and  experiment  ;    but  this  is  the  ideal,  and  the 

*"  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,"  Feb.  15th,  1SS3. 


nearer  it  is  approached  the  better"  *  *  *  "From  first 
to  last  the  student  should  be  ah  investigator.  This  implies 
a  great  deal."  It  does  indeed.  Not  long  since  1  was 
■riven  the  name  of  a  young  girl  whose  scientific  enthusiasm 
had  been  so  keenly  stirred  that  she  gave  up  her  pet  kitten 
to  the  teacher  of  physiology  that  it  might  be  vivisected 
bef<  »re  her  class  ! 

What  is  to  be  the  outcome  of  this  new  and  dangerous 
ideal  ?  I  do  not  see  how  it  ran  result  in  anything  else  than 
education  in  the  art  of  scientific  cruelty.  By  instinct  nearly 
every  lad  born  into  the  world  is  a  savage  ;  it  is  by  training 
and  education  that  he  learns  compassion  and  feels  pity. 
Now  suppose  the  young  student  is  taught  that  to  inflict 
pain — "to  seek  out  a  new  fact,"  as  Richet  phrases  it — is 
not  merely  excusable,  but  deserving  of  praise?  Torture 
then  finds  an  apology;  the  inarticulate  agony  of  his  pet 
dog  or  rabbit  will  no  longer  shock.  Like  De  Cyon  of 
St.  Petersburg,  he  will  approach  his  vivisections  with  a 
"joyful  excitement,"  perhaps  all  the  more  pleasureable 
because  aroused  by  the  agony  he  inflicts.  Like  Mante- 
gazza  of  Milan,  he  may  crucify  pregnant  rabbits  with 
"  atrocious  torture  "  {dolores  atrocissimt),  conducting  his 
experiments  as  the  Italian  physiologist  conducted  his, 
••  with  much  pleasure  and  patience."  Like  Klein  of 
London,  he  will  learn  to  have  "  no  regard  at  all  "  for  the 
suffering  he  inflicts  because,  in  the  progress  of  his  investi- 
gations in  torture,  he  "has  no  time,  so  to  speak,  for 
thinking  what  the  animal  may  feel  or  suffer." 

Now,  speaking  as  a  physician,  I  cannot  but  regard  this 
development  of  the  new  scientific  spirit  in  our  public 
schools  and  academies,  with  grave  doubt  and  keen  appre- 
hension. There  are  peculiar  clangers  which  invariably 
accompany  investigations  like  these.  for  nothing  is 
more  certain  than  that  there  may  arise  in  some  organi- 
zations a  strange  satisfaction  or  sensation  of  content  at 
the    sight    of    agony  or  bloodshed,    and    in    these  cases  a 


great  danger,  which  cannot  be  fully  explained,  is  close  at 
hand.  "  I  would  shrink  with  horror,"  said  Dr.  Haugh- 
ton,  "  from  accustoming  classes  of  young  men  to  the  sight 
of  animals  under  vivisection.  *  *  Science  would  gain 
nothing,  and  the  world  would  have  let  loose  upon  it  a  set 
of  young  dez'ils."  "  Watch  the  students  at  a  vivisection," 
suggested  the  late  Dr.  Henry  J.  Bigelow,  Professor  of 
Surgery  at  Harvard  Medical  School.  "  It  is  the  blood 
and  suffering  —  not  the  science  —  that  rivets  their 
breathless  attention."  Is  it  not  a  significant  fact — which 
the  last  census  of  the  United  States  reveals — that  of  the 
whole  number  of  murderers  confined  in  jails  and  pris- 
ons, one  occupation  contributed  so  many — the  one  which 
pertains  to  blood-letting  and  butchery  ?  The  State  of 
Massachusetts  once  produced  a  boy  murderer  who  took  dia- 
bolic delight  in  cutting  and  stabbing  children  to  death.  In 
August,  1 891,  John  Conway  was  hung  at  Liverpool  for  the 
inexplicable  murder  of  a  little  boy.  Immediately  after 
the  drop  fell  his  confession  was  read :  "  I  was  impelled 
to  that  crime  by  a  murderous  mania — a  morbid  curiosity 
to  observe  the  process  of dying  /" 

A  Canadian  physician  was  executed  in  London  in  1892 
for  murder.  A  number  of  young  women,  against  whom  he 
had  no  cause  for  malice,  he  had  undoubtedly  put  to  death 
by  one  of  the  most  agonizing  of  pois^ons,  and  under  guise 
of  conferring  a  benefit,  merely  that  in  the  contemplation 
of  their  suffering  he  might  find  pleasure  and  excitement. 
Cicero  tells  us  that  in  his  time,  men  took  their  sons  to 
gladiatorial  combats  in  order  that  youth  might  learn  how  to 
die  bravely  when  the  summons  came.  Ah,  if  that  had  been 
the  only  lesson  taught !  A  century  of  such  lessons  passes, 
and  then  this  sight  of  fierce  combat  and  bloody  struggle  has 
stirred  into  life  among  the  Roman  populace  a  taste  for 
human  agony  that  the  mere  death  of  gladiators  could  not 
satisfy  ;  and  then  came  the  infamous  exhibitions  related  by 
Tacitus    and     Suetonius— the    feasting    of    lions    upon 


7 

Christian  martyrs,  and  living  human  torches,  smeared 
with  pitch,  burning  at  nighl  in  the  gardens  of  Nero. 
Over  how  much  of  her  history  Humanity  is  obliged  to 
draw  the  veil  .'  Dr.  Rolleston,  Professor  of  Anatomy  at 
Oxford  University,  but  hinted  at  the  truth  when  he  told 
the  Royal  Commission  that  "  the  sight  of  a  living,  bleeding 
<uit/  quivering  organism  most  undoubtedly  arts  in  a  particular 
way  on  the  nature  ivithin  us  " — "  that  lower  nature  which 
we  possess,  in  common  with  the  Carnivora  !  " 

I  have  written  this  as  a  warning  of  which  there  seems  to 
me  a  growing  need.  To  the  practice  of  vivisection  in 
nndical  schools  1  (In  not  now  refer ;  that  is  a  question  by 
itself.  But  let  me  advise  parents  and  teachers  to  be 
infinitely  cautious  before — even  in  the  name  of  science — 
they  incur  the  needless  risk  of  awakening  the  demon  of 
cruelty  in  the  hearts  of  the  young.  No  experimentation 
upon  living  animals  which  involves  the  causation  of  pain,  or 
the  llow  of  blood,  should  ever  be  shown  to  classes  of 
Students  in  schools.  There  are  no  compensating  advan- 
tages to  the  positive  clangers  which  the  practice  involves. 
There  are  no  scientific  truths  necessary  to  be  known,  which 
may  not  be  fixed  upon  the  memory  of  any  pupil  without 
this  risk. 


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Ami  khan  Humanitarian  League, 

Box  j  15, 

Providence,  R.  I. 


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A  dangerous  ideal. 


